IF ALIENS INVADED and demanded that society offer up one person who represents the ideal male physique, for the purposes of scientific study, there’s a good chance we’d volunteer Brad Pitt for the position.
Excuse the absurd analogy, but you get the point. What we mean to say is that there is perhaps no better example of the ultimate physique than that of Brad Pitt.
Hollywood actors have long served as inspiration for impressionable young men. In the eighties, bigger was better, and Stallone and Schwarzenegger’s super-muscled action heroes were all the rage. In the nineties and aughts, a leaner look became more covetable, on the back of Matthew McConaughey’s chiselled six pack and Brad Pitt’s shredded Fight Club look.
Today, the perfect male form lies somewhere in between. And while it was Pitt’s Fight Club physique that spawned a million gym memberships, his bulked-up Troy body might’ve been even more influential, given how similar it is to today’s ideal.
In the 2004 historical epic, Pitt plays Achilles, the most heroic of all Greek heroes and a literal demigod of mythical proportions. Tales of Achilles’ exploits have been passed down through mythology over millennia, and it’s not because he was a particularly learned scholar or talented poet. Achilles, whether he was actually real or not, was one of the most formidable warriors in history. To take on the role, Pitt had to pack on the most muscle of his career.
To do so, he sought the assistance of Duffy Gaver, a former Navy Seal turned celebrity PT. “Brad’s never had a problem leaning out, but the uphill battle was about putting size on him,” Gaver told Esquire UK. “We talked about what is good aesthetically on the male body. If you look at Roman-Greco wrestlers they don’t go to the gym, they just do their job but they happen to look amazing. You don’t want the audience to go ‘Wow, I bet he benches a lot’. That doesn’t have anything to do with the film.”
The pair got to work with a few goals in mind. First, they wanted Pitt’s muscles to look functional, not just aesthetically pleasing. Second, they wanted to avoid building an overly large chest, so as to not make Pitt’s shoulders and arms look smaller. Instead, Pitt’s workouts were devoted to building his back, shoulders and arms.
“If you really want to build a good physique, my take is you need a good thick back, decent shoulders and decent arms,” Gaver said. “And then you can worry about leaning out.”
Brad Pitt’s ‘Troy’ workout
To accomplish his desired physique, Pitt performed the same full-body workout over and over, five days per week. Find the full workout below.
- Push-ups – 3 sets of 10
- Pull-ups – 3 sets of 10
- Air squats – 3 sets of 10
- Lat pull downs – 5 sets of descending reps (20, 15, 12, 10, 8)
- T-bar rows – 5 sets of 10
- Push-ups (again) – 5 sets of 10
- Dumbbell rows – 5 sets of 10
- Glute hyperextensions – 4 sets of 10
